


seen and unseen

by extasiswings



Series: happens grace [2]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Engagement, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Married Life, Postpartum Depression, Pregnancy, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22008055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings
Summary: Short glimpses into the lives of Maria Tompkins and Asher Flynn from engagement through married life...
Relationships: Asher Flynn/Maria Tompkins
Series: happens grace [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1584172
Kudos: 7





	1. Snowball Fight

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the lost myth of true love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20394226) by [extasiswings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/extasiswings/pseuds/extasiswings). 



> I was sent a few different Asher/Maria winter prompts on tumblr that all ended up all being set in the same universe. So I decided I might as well post them all together to keep them in one place!

Maria wakes up when the bedroom door opens and shuts, but she doesn’t open her eyes at first. Even in December, she’s warm under the pile of thick blankets on the bed, and it would be easy to fall back to sleep. Then again…

“Positively scandalous, Mr. Flynn,” she teases as the bed dips, still keeping her eyes shut. “Sneaking into an unmarried woman’s bedroom. Whatever would your mother say?”

Asher laughs quietly and stretches out next to her, nosing at the underside of her jaw as he wraps an arm around her waist. “Many things. Which is why I bribed Mrs. Kovac down the street to have a desperate need for her presence this morning. We’re all alone.”

Maria hums and turns in his embrace. Tipping her face up, she catches his mouth once, twice, slow kisses that could easily be pushed into something more. Two more days. They’ll be married in two days, and then she can leave his extremely Catholic mother’s house and spend as much time in bed with him as she can handle. 

She shivers. “In that case…whatever will we do to pass the time?”

Asher kisses her again, nipping playfully at her lower lip when he pulls back. 

“Get dressed,” he says with a grin. “I want to show you something.”

Maria raises an eyebrow. “Now?”

He nods. “Yes.”

She tries to steal another kiss, but he laughs and rolls out of reach. 

“Come on, love. It’ll be fun.”

Fifteen minutes later, Maria is dressed and ready for the day, leaning against the doorway of her bedroom. 

“Okay,” she says, and Asher looks up from where he’s stretched out across the bed. “What do you want to show me?”

He gets up and takes her hand, brushing a kiss over her knuckles.

“Close your eyes.”

“Seriously?”

“Please?”

Maria bites back a smile and closes her eyes, letting Asher lead her through the house and outside.

“Okay,” he says after another moment. “You can open them.”

Oh.

The world is blanketed in white, as if dusted in sugar, the snow powdery across the ground, the houses, the trees, more of it falling down in little flurries. It’s beautiful.

“I’ve only seen snow in pictures,” Maria says quietly, her lips curving up as she looks around.

“I know, Miss Texas,” Asher replies. “That’s why I wanted to show you.”

She bends down and cups some of the snow in her hands, not even minding the way the chill seeps through her gloves as she tries to shape it. 

“Thank you.” She sways in close and lifts up on her toes to steal a kiss. “I love it.”

“I know this—being here—is a big change, and not always a good one,” he admits. “But I thought I could at least show you…there are good things too.”

“I know,” Maria says. “And I love you for it.”

A wicked idea strikes her to lighten the more somber air. “You made one mistake though.”

“Oh? What’s that?” Asher asks.

The snow in her hands is packed enough to form at least a small ball, and Maria gently tosses it at his forehead where it bursts apart, sending snow into his hair and dripping down his face. 

“You shouldn’t have let me pick it up.”

He splutters and laughs as she dances out of reach of his hands, running down the street to gather more snow. It’s barely a minute before a snowball hits her shoulder, and then the world dissolves into laughter and shrieks and shouts as they trade fire. Finally, Asher corners Maria against a tree and kisses her, their cheeks, noses, lips chilled but not unpleasantly. She twines her arms around his neck as he tugs her in by her scarf, and she doesn’t care that they’re in the open, that anyone could look outside and see them. She loves, loves, loves this man.

…not that loving him stops her from shoving the remaining snow in her hand down the neck of his sweater after several delightful moments.

He swears in Russian and jumps back as Maria giggles and runs back to the house.

“You’re going to pay for that,” he calls after her.

“You have to catch me first,” she calls back.

They end up tumbling into a snowbank against the side of the house after Asher slips during a game of chase and accidentally drags her down with him.

“Hi,” he murmurs, brushing her hair out of her face. Maria’s smile is so wide, her cheeks hurt.

“Hi…we’re getting married.”

“We’re getting married,” he agrees, his own smile matching hers.

“And your mother still isn’t home,” she acknowledges.

“Very true.”

Maria kisses him.

“Let’s go warm up,” she suggests, sneaking her hands underneath Asher’s sweater and making him shiver.

“Let’s.”


	2. soft in purest snow

The problem with getting pregnant in the winter, Maria thinks, is that you have to be pregnant in the winter. Not that summer would be better, because goodness knows she is not looking forward to spending her final months sweating and gross while preparing to push a new human being out of her body, but there’s something a little sadistic about winter.

First, of course, there’s the ice. And the snow. All the lovely winter things that are suddenly less beautiful and more dangerous when she’s worrying about every little bump or bruise. And then there’s just the fact that when it’s freezing and she already wants to hibernate like a bear, it’s extremely unfair of the universe to make her feel like one as well.

Spring is slow to come as she slips into her third, then the start of her fourth month, as Maria gets bigger and starts to show more and more. She is decidedly unamused when a late blizzard knocks out the power.

“I can’t believe I thought snow was pretty,” she grumbles, huddled under several blankets on the couch. Stretched out on the floor, Asher chuckles as he gets the kindling to catch in the fireplace.

“The power will be back soon enough,” he answers. “And the snow will be gone soon as well. By the time it returns, I bet you’ll think it’s magical again.”

“Well, right now it’s not magical, just cold. And inconvenient. And annoying.”

“I bet I can think of some ways to warm you up,” Asher teases.

Maria bites back a smile as she burrows deeper into her blanket nest.

“Maybe later,” she replies. “But I have one you can do right now.”

“Oh?”

She lifts the corner of a blanket and moves over on the couch in clear invitation. And her husband takes the hint.

Asher gets to his feet, brushing himself off as the fire starts to get going, then joins her on the couch, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into his chest. Maria sighs and leans back into the warmth of him.

“Better?”

“Much.”

Asher’s hand falls low on her stomach as she nuzzles at his jaw.

“How is our little one today? Not treating you too badly, I hope.”

“He’s decided to hate eggs again,” she replies, shifting to give him better access when he kisses her neck.

Asher hums. “Rude of him. I’ll have to have a word.”

Maria laughs.

“You’re welcome to try,” she replies. “Just be glad he’s given it a rest with the wild cravings so I’m not sending you out into the middle of this for pickles or some ridiculous combination of things that should never be eaten together.”

“I would brave worse things than a little snow for you, love,” Asher says, and her heart melts a little.

Maria turns him away from his task so she can kiss him properly—long, slow, and sweet, until heat is sparking through her veins.

“I know you would,” she murmurs when she pulls back. “One of many reasons why I love you.”

Asher’s eyes go soft as he brushes her hair back with a tenderness that makes her ache.

“Do you know, Mrs. Flynn,” he replies just as softly, “I think you may be something of a miracle.”

Maria steals another kiss.

“Well, Mr. Flynn. That’s convenient. Because I rather think you may be as well.”

His hand slips beneath the hem of her shirt, fingers ghosting bare skin just lightly enough to make her shiver.

“Cold?”

“You know I’m not.”

Asher’s eyes spark wickedly as he starts to draw his hand away.

“Well, in that case—”

“I didn’t say you could stop.”

They don’t leave the couch for quite some time.


	3. The After

Asher Flynn knows there is something wrong with his wife. He hasn’t wanted to push, hasn’t wanted to pry, but he knows there’s something wrong. He sees the dark shadows under her eyes, sees the way she flinches sometimes when Garcia cries.

He asked his mother once, after a confusing incident that started with Maria shouting and very quickly turned into her crying into his shirt as he stroked her hair. But his mother just patted his cheek, told him he wouldn’t understand because he wasn’t a woman, and promised to help.

That had been a month ago. And now it’s ten days before Christmas, Garcia is four months old, and Asher doesn’t know what to do.

Garcia is crying when Asher walks through the door. It’s not unusual—Asher himself is running on fumes because it seems like Garcia is almost always crying—but what is strange is the way Maria is frozen in the kitchen, gripping the sink, staring blankly ahead like she can’t hear it.

“Maria?” Nothing. Garcia cries again, and Asher looks down the hall, torn in two directions.

“Sweetheart?” He tries again. Maria starts when he rests a hand on her shoulder.

“I broke a glass,” she says, he voice distant even as her eyes come back to focus. “I was washing it and he cried and I was going to go, but it broke and I—I couldn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Asher replies quietly, slowly, scanning for any sign that she might have accidentally hurt herself. “It’s okay, love. Just…stay here. I’ll be right back.”

It takes him just under ten minutes to gather up Garcia and run him next door to his mother. When he returns, Maria hasn’t moved.

“Maria—”

“I can’t do this,” she whispers, finally looking up and over at him. There are tears in her eyes and Asher doesn’t hesitate to lead her over to the couch and pull her into his arms.

“I can’t—” Maria’s voice breaks. “I’m so tired, Asher. All the time. And I’m trying, I swear I am—”

“I know—”

“—but nothing is right, nothing is right, I can’t even get him to stop crying, what am I—Asher—”

Asher hushes her gently and rubs easy circles between her shoulders as she presses her face to his neck.

“When was the last time you slept, love?” He asks. Maria laughs through a sob.

“Maybe an hour or so last night?” She replies. “I had a dream that—and I woke up and wanted to check on Garcia, needed to see he was—that he was—”

She clears her throat and curls her fingers in his shirt, but doesn’t finish the sentence. It doesn’t matter—Asher can read between the lines.

“Anyway,” Maria continues, “I sat up with him and didn’t get back to sleep.”

His fingers find her hair and begin to stroke slowly through the strands.

“You’re a good mother, Maria,” he murmurs. She makes a noise of derision and disbelief and he pulls her closer.

“You are,” he insists. “What happened…before. With Gabriel—”

Maria shudders. Asher doesn’t stop stroking her hair.

“It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault, wasn’t anyone’s fault. There wasn’t anything you could have done.”

He waits for her, uncaring of the growing damp spot on his shirt collar.

“I’m afraid,” Maria finally whispers. “To love him. Garcia. I’m terrified, Asher. And I’m angry and exhausted and I don’t—Asher, I don’t know what to do. I don’t think I can do this again.”

Asher adjusts their position so he can stretch out on the couch with her head on his chest.

“Maybe we should go away,” he suggests. “Just for a week or so. Garcia can stay with my mother for that long, he’ll be fine. And you can get some rest.”

“We can’t go,” Maria argues. “It’s his first Christmas—”

“And there will be many more of them,” Asher replies. “Many, many more.”

“Asher…”

“I love our son,” he acknowledges. “But I also love you. So much. Let me help you, dearest. Let me take care of you. Please.”

“You don’t think—” Maria looks away and her voice drops. “You don’t think I’m a failure?”

“Absolutely not.” Asher stops stroking her hair to tip her chin up so she’s looking at him again. “You’re not a failure, Maria. Not as a wife, not as a mother, not as anything. Not by any stretch of the imagination. There’s nothing wrong with needing help. There’s nothing wrong with taking time. Okay?”

Maria bites her lip and nods once.

“Take me to bed?” She asks quietly.

“Of course.” She squeaks when he sweeps her up into his arms and stands, and a small smile flickers across his lips.

“I can still walk, you know. You don’t have to carry me.”

Asher hums thoughtfully and shakes his head. “No, I’m pretty sure that was in the wedding vows. Right after the ‘in sickness and in health’ bit. I promise to carry my wife to bed when she’s dead on her feet from taking care of our child, etcetera.”

“Oh, was that where it was?’’

“Hush.” Asher steals a kiss, and when Maria smiles, the tight band of anxiety in his chest loosens.

Nine days later, they wake on Christmas Eve to light streaming through an unfamiliar window entirely wrapped up in one another. Asher strokes his wife’s face in the filmy light, noting that the shadows under her eyes are almost gone. And he knows they’re going to be okay.

“Morning, love,” he murmurs.

“Asher?”

“Yes?

Maria smiles. “Let’s go home.”

“Are you sure?” He asks.

She leans in for a long moment, kissing him slow and deep. 

“Let’s go spend Christmas with our son.”

(So they do.)


	4. Mourning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.”

Maria Tompkins-Flynn buries her first husband in Texas. She doesn’t bury her second. She doesn’t have anything to bury.

Asher Flynn goes missing on a Tuesday and Maria hears nothing. She is not a fool, she knows her love is a soldier and a spy and they live in dangerous times, but she hopes anyway, prays anyway, with everything in her. Let him be working somewhere with no way to contact her, or if he must be hurt or in trouble, let him at least come home to her.

She doesn’t pray to God. She prays instead to her namesake— _Hail Mary, full of grace_ —because she is a wife and a mother and if anyone could understand—

_Hail, holy Queen, mother of mercy—_

She prays until her rosary beads are perpetually dulled from her fingerprints. Garcia is still so young and there are faint stirrings of revolution in the air, he needs his father. She needs her husband. Another loss would unmake her.

In the end, Maria gets a letter, unsigned, with a death certificate, four months after she last saw Asher. And money appears in her bank account that she doesn’t think about, that she doesn’t want to touch even though she knows eventually she will.

But there is no body to bury, there are no ashes to scatter, and somehow that is so much crueler than the first time. Because she still dreams. And the dreams are the sweetest torture of all—

_Maria…_

_Asher walking through the door, exhausted and thin and bruised, but alive, taking her in his arms—_

_They told me you were dead. They said you—_

_I lived for you, my love. I lived for you._

_It’s impossible._

_Nothing is impossible when we love._

_Asher…_

“Majka?”

—because she always has to wake.

Maria hears the hesitation in her son’s voice and guilt drops heavy into her stomach as she forces her eyes open.

“What is it, my darling?”

Garcia shifts on his feet and her chest pangs to look at him—already tall and all gangly, awkward limbs even at his age. God, she loves him so much.

“It’s time for school. I…didn’t want you to worry if I was gone when you woke up.”

Maria swallows hard. Grief shreds her throat like glass.

“Of course, love.” She sits up and pulls him down to her to kiss his forehead and ruffle his hair. “Have a good day.”

“Volim te.”

When the door closes, Maria closes her eyes again and slips back down under the covers.

_Maria…_


	5. New Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “I am burning in stars/I am feverishly filled with stars.”

At first, Maria passes it off as just the winter. If she is cold, if she is constantly tired, that’s only because even when it isn’t snowing or raining, the sun isn’t out for long enough for it to be helpful. If she’s overly emotional at times, that’s only because Asher keeps being sent away on secret assignments that he can’t discuss and she misses him and worries. If she gets nauseous sometimes...well, there’s been a stomach bug going around the neighborhood.

There’s an explanation for everything. And it’s easy to look at each piece in isolation than in the aggregate.

She’s at Asher’s mother’s house when it finally comes together. Katya is in the kitchen preparing dinner as Maria works on sewing up a hole in the pocket of a pair of pants. A perfectly normal evening.

Until the smell of fish hits Maria’s nose and she barely makes it to the bathroom before she loses the contents of her stomach. A moment later, she feels her mother-in-law’s hands, Katya humming sympathetically as she strokes Maria’s hair and presses a cool cloth to the back of her neck.

Maria is about to blame the Novak children from the end of the road for getting her sick, when Katya says—

“How far along are you?”

—and Maria goes utterly still. 

Her mind rapidly cycles through the last two months—the fatigue, the nausea, the mood swings—and settles on the most glaring symptom that she missed. When was the last time she—?

“At least two months,” she says, her voice strangely far away to her own ears as she sits back on the floor, her hand fluttering absently over her stomach. Katya smiles and gently squeezes Maria’s shoulder before stepping back.

“I’ll make you some tea. And then we’ll talk, yes?”

“Okay.”

Later that night, as she lays in bed alone, Maria stares at the ceiling and thinks about Gabriel. 

The next few days pass in a daze. Maria swings between elation and heart-stopping terror—she wants to laugh, she wants to dance, and yet also weep, wail, run away. She feels as if her feelings are too strong and varied for her body to contain, a supernova trapped under her skin. 

Finally, Asher returns. And Maria—

“Are you okay, love?” He asks between kisses, unable to calm her roving hands as she tugs at his clothes.

“I just missed you,” she replies, and there are no more words for some time.

—well, she sees no reason not to put her nervous energy to better use.

After, she curls around him in bed, resting her head on his shoulder and tracing stray patterns on his chest. Outside, a storm rattles the windows, and Asher’s arms tighten around her.

“Where are you?” He murmurs, pressing his lips to her hair. “You seem...far away.”

Maria swallows and lifts her head to kiss him properly. 

“I’m here, I promise,” she says. “I just...I have something to tell you. And I’m not sure how.”

Asher cups her cheek, his thumb sweeping across her cheekbone. 

“You can tell me anything,” he assures. “No matter what.”

Maria bites her lip as her fingers trace the lines of his collarbone.

“Tell me you love me.”

Asher’s mouth curves up. “I love you.”

“I’m pregnant.” The words escape her in a rush, the first time she’s officially said them aloud this time around. And for that moment, as Asher goes still beneath her, the terror vanishes in the surge of overwhelming joy that follows. 

“You’re—” Asher sits fully up, his eyes wide.

Maria nods, then squeaks as he pulls her in and kisses her fiercely. 

“Sorry,” he pants when he pulls away, releasing her only for his hands to hover by her waist like he isn’t sure whether she’s too delicate to touch. “Sorry, I—is this—can I—?”

Maria laughs as she sways in to kiss him again. 

“You’re happy then?” She asks once they’ve settled once more.

Asher shakes his head, but rushes to clarify before her stomach can drop.

“There is no word in any language I know that can adequately express how I feel,” he says. “It far exceeds _happy_ , it is—it’s as if I’ve been filled with stars, too bright to look at, too vast to truly know.”

Maria smiles and cuddles closer. “I’ll take it.”


End file.
